Sunday, July 17, 2011

I watched " Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead " on Netflix two days ago. It is a remarkable documentary of a very wealthy and very overweight and very unhealthy, ie: rashy Australian man Joe Cross who travels cross country in the USA whilst partaking a 60 day juice fast and interviewing Americans about health.He is charming, unassuming, and really not preachy at all. He offers help to one nearly 500 pound trucker with the same rash disease he has, and later in the movie this man takes him up on his offer. In 10 days the trucker looses 30 pounds, completely healthily ( with doc checkups) in 30 days; 90 pounds and in 60 days the scale we were left at, was at 202 pounds less. He converts neighbors, family members and friends all from just gently sharing his experience. His brother has a 56,000 dollar heart attack and takes 471 dollars worth of medication a month and finally surrenders to his younger brother's new way of life and tries it, loosing 47 pounds. It is truly touching to see the brothers connect over health, choosing a future together of empowerment and responsibility for their lives. Actually, they are choosing not only health, but each other, family and their love for each other. It is moving.

The most impressive part of the film besides the weight loss, glow of skin, confidence and happiness the Reboot Juicers experience, is the way the film explains with cartoons and narration, the effect that Micro nutrients ( from raw vegetables and fruits) have on cells. They literally heal cells. Macro nutrients, meats, processed foods etc, weaken the cells and make us more susceptible to disease, cancer illness and allergies. Even having known a friend who reduced his prostate cancer cell rate 40% by eating 90% raw for 60 days, I still didn't really understand the importance of fruits and veges for everyone. Now I get that they are a direct source of the sun's energy, our life source. I couldn't wait to go out and get a juicer.

That night, I told my husband about the movie and he surprised me by saying he would try a fast. I love his commitment to our family. The next day, after I went out and bought an Omega 8006 juicer from Mother's ( has a 15 year warranty, that is an extraordinary appliance!) I came home thrilled to assemble and juice up my big bunches of kale, celery, spinach and bags of granny apples, lemons, and cucumbers. It was easy to do and when I drank the juice it was like drinking a cool crisp garden. I felt sprightly and fresh.When I went out with the children for a potluck dinner, I left my husband a big glass of juice in the refrigerator and came home to see him half way through "Fat,Sick and Nearly Dead" and raving about the juice. I was delighted.

Yesterday and today I have been so excited to wake up and make a new concoction, I have added beets, oranges (sans peel), eliminated the celery and lemon that the kids don't like, and added berries via blender. The kids help push the veges and fruits into the juicer, delighting at the crunch crunch crunch of the turning auger and their power in choice to contribute to being healthy.We call the beet one Super Hero Juice.I feel a healthy energetic buzz after drinking these juices. I feel empowered in creating a future with zero doctors visits, zero medications, just health, energy, adventures and a long life of love and laughter.

I am so grateful to Joe Cross and his production crew, to Alex from Mother's market for telling all the nitty gritty details about juicing and making the transition to vegan, ( he suggests taking Brewer's Yeast powder in the juice, which has the complete amino acid chain which we miss out on if we don't have meat, and B Complex which without we will feel cranky, irritable, tired and head-achy, like PMS )and I am so grateful to my husband for once again being supportive of a new adventure in health.Anytime I have cravings now, I juice up some Super Hero Juice, not to loose weight, but to feed my cells, care for my body, and get that BUZZ of being healthy, vital and alive!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Oh hilarious. This morning my husband gets that he has been super focused on his book and work lately and not present with me. He asks me if we can have a date, the kids will go to the hourly drop off child care place that they love, Super Fun, dinner and maybe a movie, and I am delighted. "Ok it's a date!" He says with bravado, and I am grinning like a silly woman...it wasn't always this easy to get a date with my husband.Ben, in his Star Wars underwear, perched on the arm of our couch, pipes up, "But Mom, if you and Dad are already married, why do you have to go on a date?"

A giant Man Committee in my head shouts "YEAH!!!! WHY? We did the courting! We wooed and won you over, why do you married women need us to do that darn date stuff, and PRETEND we are having a date?" I laugh as I hear men groan around the world.I ask Todd if he heard and we chuckle together. Then I get to answering my son's very good question.

"Well, Ben, it's like you and a friend. You make a friend, and to be REALLY good friends, you need to spend time together and play, laugh, learn what the other person likes right? Well, Mommy and Daddy need to do that too. We spend time where Daddy only focuses on me and I only focus on Daddy...no interruptions from Bronson, laundry or the phone."

He nods understandingly. But I appreciate his question. Men from all cultures have it that when they woo and date a women, once they get her the ring, marry and give up all other temptations from other women, gosh darn it, then that should be enough! It just doesn't make a bit of sense to men that they should "have to" keep trying to win their women's affections when the winning has been won. In other words, game over. I imagine that men say it to each other all the time at Bachelor parties... "Game over man, You're DONE. After tomorrow you only have one women for the rest of your LIFE."The courting and hunt for a woman is done after marriage. The game has been played. Most men want to just kick back and enjoy their life, retire the tux and the suit and tie, have time with the Misses be watching TV together, maybe a drink together, and straightforward roll in the hay. No fuss no muss. Why not? He earned it!The whole idea of a "date" with a wife just doesn't make any sense. Especially to couples without children. Why get all gussied up for each other when we can just stay home and strip and get straight to it? Total insanity! A date is what you do when you want to get to know, romance, woo and entice a woman. Your wife, well, you know her and she's supposed to be a sure thing now, right?

And for married men with kids, well, a date is just frustrating. First of all, there is the hassle of the babysitter. Usually the wife takes care of it, but the man always gets bothered by who or what time or driving her home or something...and then there's the cost, sixty bucks for some teen or college girl to come over and get the kids ready for bed for an hour and then sit on her butt and watch TV for the next three hours. What a rip off.Second, there's the getting dressed up thing again, which is a pain, and that look your wife gives you like, "You are going to wear THAT?" Men never had to put up with that when they were actually dating...the women got whatever shirt the man damn well felt like wearing and looked DELIGHTED to see him, yes, in THAT.Thirdly there is the cost of the dinner and maybe movie too, all in all it could be almost 200 bucks for a night out and sitter and in a day or two the wife will bitch about how badly we need money to save for college. A guy just can't do enough.On top of all that, unless we throw a few more hundred dollars out there and get a hotel, the supposed "sure thing" for a married man with children is definitely not a sure thing. The kids might be a tangled mass, sleeping in our bed, one might wander in just as we are starting to get to bed, or as soon as we get home the wife might remember that she needs to make brownies for tomorrow's potluck or patch together that costume the kid needs. The man's shoulder drop, defeated again...duped into playing the "game" of Date Night that he just can't win.To a man, the whole Date Night concept can be a big farce. Sure, some get excited about the movie out and the good steak, but their idea of the date night is totally different from the wife.

She wants to relive the romance, the starry eyes, the candle light. She wants to feel whisked away to a fantasy place that smells like flowers and spices while he stares into her eyes and her eyes only. She wants to feel adored and desired. Even if he has to pretend, she doesn't care, just muster up your attention for one night once in a while and look into my eyes and find me Fascinating, dammit!!! She really doesn't care as much about the point of the date, warming up for the jump in the sack...no she really wants the experience of the desire and romance beforehand. The married woman often feels like she has been duped...all that courting and romance in the beginning and NOW look what I get. What a farce! I've been tricked!She really doesn't get why her husband doesn't WANT to do a Date Night with her. Why he is not excited to get dressed up, oogle her in her perfect dress, kiss her neck as they go out the door, hold her hand and rub the small of her back as they wait for a table. She doesn't GET why he doesn't WANT to go on a date, whatever it costs, to spend time alone with HER, he used to practically drool when he saw her dressed up! Logically too, she doesn't get why he doesn't want to keep the marriage blooming and growing, thriving instead of surviving each other. The wife with children is desperate for date nights to "get away" as well, but may also feel guilt over leaving babies or small children. She may worry so much that a date night is just too stressful, so she gives up. She resorts to taking scraps of connection, like an ice cream outside on the porch to look at the moon and talk for a half hour after the kids go to bed. "Ok", she sighs in her head, "I guess that was a date."

That is the real point. That a Date Night really is whatever the couple creates that it is. And it doesn't have to be "settling". We can actually be thrilled about an ice cream and the moon. I will never forget the date Todd took me on recently to watch the sunset over a huge lake and eat chocolate and drink a glass of red wine and talk about everything and nothing. Last year, the time we took to ask each other what the perfect date night would be for each of us was a huge shift in generosity for me. When I heard him describe in detail, going out for a nice casual dinner in comfy clothes, talking about our books, going to a book store and checking out the latest books, then maybe a coffee or dessert too, that was a great night out too. And it included learning something new as well. I resisted it, because I wanted Date Night to be all about ME, but I have to admit I loved the idea of that evening too.When we did that Date Night, and I actually enjoyed it, something shifted for Todd too, he saw I was willing to acknowledge his desires and his desire to fulfill my desires...well, let's just say we have a lot more Date Nights now! :)So, a Toast to Friday night Date Nights everywhere,however they are, creating moonlight and merriment, married and in love.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

We are on the Metro North train headed into the Big Apple for our family vacation and we find out it's also Gay Pride weekend. Later that day our friend tells us that New York just approved gay marriage the day before. The Gay Pride parade is going to be one helluva party!

Images flash into my mind from when I was in college and lived on the lower West Side on 11th street and the Hudson River, right in the heart of the "Gay Section". Men in nothing but banana hammock thong underwear and cowboy chaps, their muscular butts waggling in the air for all to see, shaved bare chested men with rainbow skivvies, dancing as free as could be on top of floats, kissing each other, shouting, hugging, cheering, loving themselves and their life. A celebration of who they are....sprinkled with nudity, some cross dressing and rainbows everywhere. How would I explain this to my three sons? What would an 8, 6 and 2 year old think of all that?

I went to fashion design school at Parsons when I was 17. Some of my very first friends were gay designers. Three out of the four men I remember in my dorm were gay and they became my best friends. I loved them because of their full self expression. I loved their perspective of women, their adoring fever they embodied when they talked about Diana Ross, Susan Summer or Liz Taylor. They were not attracted to women, but they loved and admired them deeply. I loved how they taught me to "Be Fierce" and to "Work it"...when we danced at nightclubs in our silver hot shorts. We would dress up like crazy club kids, in costumes of sorts, that we created from what we had, vintage clothes, cut up jewelry, feather boas, red monkey fur, mesh stockings...and we would waltz to the front of the line of the club, that was two blocks long, and get let right in. It was their bravado, their confidence, their creativity and love for living life fully that had me step up and be that fully expressed bold woman. I owned being a woman because of them. I love gay men.

So when my mother's boyfriend later commented, on the comfort of his deck, drinking a beer with his family, "I don't believe in gay marriage. God made Adam and EVE not Adam and Steve."...I was saddened by the closed perspective.My sister spoke up and sad "But if Adam and Steve want to get married it doesn't bother me or affect my marriage." Yea, Chi.I agreed and piped in "Yep. Nothing anyone else does or says can diminish what Todd and I have. We are married because we say so. I support people loving each other."

I thought about it more later...on the way home from NYC, in the train where two lesbians sat next two us and a few gay men dashed by shouting loudly, definitely proud. We didn't end up having to explain men in chaps to our boys, because we mostly did museums and parks uptown, near where we stayed, but if I did need to explain it I would have been straightforward and happy to.

What I got clear on is that Yes, maybe God or the universe made Adam for Eve and Eve for Adam. Maybe that is the way it was intended...if you look at it from a body part and procreation perspective.AND the fact is that there are, right now, and have been for thousands of years, many Adams and Steve couples and Eve and Ellas. That is a fact. There are lots of gay people who love each other, they are huge and integral part of our society and contribute an enormous amount of creativity and power. And they want to get married so they can honor their love. They also get to visit each other in the hospital and inherit and properly care for whatever estate they have worked all their lives to accumulate. They get to share in health care, bank accounts and insurance etc. as well. They get to be MARRIED and have the importance of those words of commitment.

Whether one agrees with that or not, it occurred to me that in life, things don't always go as we intend them. What makes it stressful or an issue of conflict is when we make it WRONG. So we want a sunny birthday? Then it rains? The stress is not in the rain. The stress is that we make it wrong.So our original idea of marriage is a man and a women? So relationships are supposed to be heterosexual? Well not all are. So what? Can we just accept that and be with that and support love and honor to be created? Or do we have to make it wrong so we can feel RIGHT and superior?The problem with Equal Rights is that there is a RIGHT and a WRONG. When in fact, like the rain, nothing is right or wrong unless we make it so. If we take a look at why we need to be right about something, maybe we wouldn't feel like things in the world are wrong.

I am committed to teaching my sons about the diversity, wonder and love in the world.Of course I would love for them to be heterosexual and have a wife and kids, but I have no fear if they are not. My dear friends Keith, Scott and Casey taught me how much there is to celebrate in being human, man or woman, no matter what your sexual preference is.

I am also committed to guide them in being the kind of people that when something doesn't go the way we intend in life in general, to not make it wrong, but to accept what is so, to create newly and to be fully self expressed and encourage others to be free and fully self expressed. And if they end up on a float in rainbow skivvies with their husbands in the process,more Power to 'em!

About Me

Hi! I am an speaker and writer Mom of three boys, wife of thirteen years,Leader in personal training and development and founder of Moms Across America. I am committed to empowerment in the world, and creating a World of YES! Thanks for sharing a moment...please share your inspirations.